Listeners can look also forward to the vocal highlights of the festival, which include the first appearances of two ensembles in Stockholm: the award-winning male voice quintet Amarcord, with a delightful Renaissance a cappella cavalcade, and Trio Mediaeval’s colourful female voices with a spellbinding programme of medieval folk song. An exciting new item in this year’s festival is EAR-ly, the first-ever Swedish competition for young early music ensembles, which will put the spotlight on the early music scene’s upcoming performers.

The festival will also be celebrating the anniversary of the Swedish baroque master Johan Helmich Roman. Along with numerous lunchtime, afternoon and evening concerts, the festival will include old favourites such as school and family concerts, seminars and master classes. Stockholm Early Music Festival is under the patronage of her majesty Queen Silvia. Some of the highlights of this unusual festival (which may undergo modifications between now and June) follow: The opening concert, entitled “A Roman’tic Evening”, will be given on 4 June by the Drottningholms Barockensemble; other events the same day include a seminar (in Swedish) on the influence of dance on musical writing on 5 June, the first part of the EAR-ly competition, and Cuban music with Ars Longa in the evening. 

Friday’s offerings include “Finders, Keepers, said the King”, an early music concert for children with the Tre Kronor baroque ensemble, a harp and ensemble music master class given by Andrew Lawrence-King, and concerts by baroque lutenist Nigel North (“Music for English Kings, Queens and Princes”) and Concerto Copenhagen, Lars Ulrik Mortensen’s ensemble, in a programme of Danish music called “In the Eye of the Storm”. The following day features a lunch concert with the Trio Stravaganti (“English taste and Italian beauty”), a harpsichord master class with Mortensen, “Concert dansé” with the French ensemble L’Eventail, medieval and folk music of Norway with the Trio Mediaeval, and to cap off the evening, “Luz y Norte musical” with The Harp Consort, conducted by Lawrence-King.

The festival ends on 8 June with a lunchtime concert by the Villancico Ensemble, a seminar (also in Swedish) on Johan Helmich Roman, a concert entitled “Barroco toscano” given by the Italian ensemble Auser Musici, and the German ensemble Amarcord’s final programme, “Madrigal Highlights”.